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President Olin's terms were simple: Western Cartridge would buy the Winchester business & plants (valued last year at $30,000,000) for $3.000,000 cash, $4,800,000 in preferred stock, $300,000 towards paying receivership expenses. Last week the Winchester reorganization committee consisting of Earle Bailie, president of Tri-Continental Corp. and partner of J. & W. Seligman & Co., and Medley G. B. Whelpley, president of American Express Bank & Trust Co., approved the offer. The plan then awaited the approval of the Federal receiver. When the deal is completed owners of Winchester first mortgage bonds will receive $50 cash and $28 par value Western Cartridge preferred stock for each $100 bond, while holders of Winchester debentures will get $38 par value preferred Western stock for each $100. President Olin last week assured New Haven that the Winchester business will not be moved to East Alton, that the big local plant may even be expanded.
Consummation of the deal leaves many a well-known name in the arms & munitions field. Nimrods are familiar with ammunition turned out by Peters, U. S., Remington, Federal. They also know the products of such firearms concerns as:
Remington Arms Co., Inc., older than Winchester by nearly half a century, always its peer. The first Remington rifle was made by Eliphalet Remington in 1816. He died in 1861, weakened by the strain of upping production for the Civil War (then famed gun: the Harper's Ferry musket). His three sons Philo, Samuel and Eliphalet Jr., carried on, but 23 years after the Civil War Marcellus Hartley bought control of the company, and his grandson Marcellus Hartley Dodge is now its chairman. Remington first developed the hammerless, solid-breech, repeating shotgun and the hammerless unloading shotgun, introduced the paper shotgun shell and the metallic cartridge in the U. S. It made the deadly little Derringer short barreled pistol, carried in the sash of many a gambler. Newest Remington shells and cartridges are Kleanbore, with potassium chlorate eliminated from the priming mixture, thus sparing the barrel from rust and pitting. Remington once made typewriters, was not successful and sold the division, now part of Remington Rand. Inc. At present Remington is the second biggest maker of cash registers but is negotiating to sell this business to National Cash Register, the biggest. It is the largest U. S. pocket cutlery maker. In September there were false reports that Remington would buy Winchester, that E. I. du Pont de Nemours & Co. would acquire a minority interest in the combination.
Savage Arms Corp., which has expanded into such by-products as washing machines, refrigerators, has also expanded in its principal business. Its most notable acquisition came last year with the purchase of A. H. Fox Gun Co. of Philadelphia, famed for high-grade shotguns. Savage also holds U. S. rights to the Lewis Machine Gun and the patents for the Driggs-Schroeder gun, used in the Army and Navy. This year the company has lost money, fortnight ago it passed its dividend.